intersecting planes

Mind-body. Or maybe emotional-physical.  Or abstract-concrete.  Interactions of elements on planes that hadn't crossed each other previously.....

I'm INTJ - in this case emphasis on the T for thinking (vs. Feeling), and maybe N for intuiting (vs. Sensing.)  I do live most comfortably in figuring out and analyzing, thinking things through, etc.... I know it's more complex than this, but i think of myself as fairly concrete and rational.  It's not that I don't have emotions, it's just that i'm not especially adept at dealing in their realm.  In fact, i have very little handle on them and am too often at their mercy.

The mind to body connection i get - specifically, the way he plays with my mind and the way that arouses me, leaves me wet and with a terribly empty, wanting to be filled feeling.  He can say a few words, give a look, make a small suggestion, put me in a tiny predicament.... and my body is right there, listening, waiting, thrumming.

It's the body to mind thing that still floors me.  It's related to the "why is sex so important anyhow?" thing - which also still completely floors me.

Last week i was a bit cranky, had a little attitude, was a bit on edge and kind of wound up.  This is what led to the "Making me submissive" (see previous post).   I hadn't admitted to myself how overwhelmed, stressed, and disconnected i really felt.  He put the cuffs on my wrists and ankles, then left me working. That's the first body to mind intersection - i do understand operant conditioning - but it still surprises me that the feel of the cuffs changes my mindset so easily.

Later he called me to the bedroom, there were a few barely under my breath mutterings, but i went.  I imagined there would be spanking, and implements i don't care for, and probably tears.  I didn't wanna - but i knew that really i needed it and it would be good for me and good for us - i was angry and sulky but also glad he was making time and doing it.

Instead he went for the large plug.  From my body's reaction to the cold lube onward i was resistant. And of course - resistance is futile (i had to - sorry). He pushed, slowly but with force.  I was in pain, i was fighting it, and i was fearful, fearful of the part where it burns the worst - and mostly fearful of the feeling that always overcomes me once it seats fully in. Because that physical moment and sensation has always made me instantly and overwhelmingly submissive, all other feelings and emotions disappear. I am completely his.

That is for me the strongest example of the body ruling the mind.  Of course it's not just the physical that has the impact - it is a huge imposition of his dominance that particular action is.  And others work the same way - spanking of course, but also his touching me when and how he pleases, his hands on or even near my throat.  It may be painful, or arousing, or just claiming - but he can use all those physical sensations to put my mind where he wants it.  I find that fascinating.

making me submissive

One of the biggest changes/tools/things-my-husband-has-learned-to-exploit has been getting me feeling submissive.  Because, for me, feeling submissive means charging through and past whatever stressed, irritated, wound-up, or otherwise unwelcome attitude and emotions may be ruling my world at the moment.  For me to get truly to submissive, all that other noise has to be obliterated, not just walled off or pushed aside.  And he understands this.

Kitty wrote a brilliant post about submitting vs. being made to submit, or following vs. being made to follow.  I have watched myself struggle to learn how to follow or submit without the being-made-to part because that has always been what my husband wanted.  He has never deviated from this.  But there is absolutely and undeniably a thrill, a high, a charge, and a huge turn on in the being-made-to.

Part of the evolution has been in my coming to believe - down deep in my core - that he does want my submission.  This belief makes me want to offer exactly that: he wants my submission so i offer it, he doesn't want to fight me for it so i don't want to make him.  I know - and I've known all along - that whenever i pushed back and tried to get him to force anything out of me, it was because i needed him to prove he really wanted it, that i wasn't giving something so overwhelming for no reason.  Not so mature, but i guess it's the process i had to go through.

And if that makes it sound like i now manage some blissful, idyllic, strife and doubt-free submissive existence - well - my husband could refute that notion if he could stop laughing long enough to list the many ways i miss the mark.  I try.  He knows i try.  Sometimes the best i can do is to be open to getting past the attitude or bad mood or whatever-it-is when he does the magic he does to get me there.  I often can't get myself there, but if i fight him, i'll never make the leap, so cooperating with the process is sometimes the best i got.

Which brings me back to the tools/things-he-exploits/magic-he-does to get me to the point of submissive.  It does, in describing it, sound like forcing my submission, exactly what i said he won't do.  It is different.  There have been the rare occasions that i just couldn't "get there" and he stopped.  It's a subtle but really obvious thing - the difference between struggling but trying to keep up and struggling but sitting down and refusing to move at all.  He won't force, he expects me to try.

But there are an awful lot of actions, words, sensations, situations, things he can do to me or demand of me that will push me through all the other feelings i might be fighting with.  For us - this is what i sometimes need; maybe he sometimes needs to have the opportunity to do this - i don't know.  Sometimes i do need to be conquered, but i have to let him do it.

Cycles

I participated in a professional seminar of sorts last week and one of the activities was to identify why we were at the point in our careers that we were. This drove home something that I have always known about myself: I have never had my ideal future mapped out in my head, I make each big decision as it comes.  I have a very strong sense of who I am, what I value, what I enjoy, and what my strengths and weaknesses are. As choices present themselves, I choose based on that moment.  This has led me into two different careers that I love and my current job, which I really love.

It has served me in my personal life as well.  I try to do things and make decisions intentionally, but not at all towards a pre-determined path.  And I am incredibly fortunate in the people and relationships I have in my life.

The trick with this way of going through life though seems to be recognizing when the big decisions are there to be made. I am certain I have missed those moments before just as i know i have made poor choices at different times also.   Sometimes circumstances are such that the need to make a choice is unavoidable.  Other times, the feeling that a change is coming just starts to grow and take shape until it is inevitable.  That's the case now.


I started this blog three years ago in September.  The several years prior to that had been a time of intense focus and concentration on me, on my goals.  As that work started to bear fruit, my focus shifted, very unexpectedly, to us.

The past three years have been a lot of thought and learning and work, by both of us, and about "Us".   A blog would seem, at face value, to be all about "me," but in fact it has been a very big help to the work on us.

And the "us" is pretty stable now, engaged, excited, connected, stronger by far than ever before. And now?  I feel us looking outward now.  There's another shift coming or it's already in the works i think. We are not at a destination we had been waiting for; we are ready to be and do things we weren't before though.



I looked back at some of my first posts in September three years ago.  This was what i hoped then, and it has indeed come to be.


i woke up again at 3 this morning and couldn't fall back asleep
i lay there thinking about you - imaginging/remembering your hands on me
your hands feeling me, making me feel,
moving my body to where and how you want it
i ached to have you there and not imagined

this is something very new
previously i cringed at the thought of what you must feel touching me
so i never really experienced the feel of you on me
and i dont think you felt right to take command of my body

i never had this kind of aching before
now i can't imagine going back
i think you feel the right of it now
i hope it is pleasing for you 
i hope it becomes part of you

cold water

The runners in my family both have foot injuries right now.  That means i get to insist on ice baths - 12 minutes, foot submerged in icewater...  (Did you know it feels colder if you stir it around?)

Because i'm me, i do this with gleeful abandon a glad heart , sadistic mirth a smile on my face, and lots of trash talk friendly teasing.

The frozen footed runners respond with a ridiculous amount of moaning, groaning, oh-woe-is-me'ing, and all around drama.

Except tonight one of them (i'll let you guess which one) reminded me, not without a good deal of growling, that there is a good chance we may be together, home, for a little bit of time, after the boys leave for school, tomorrow...and that that he might remember the whole icebath, foot-hurts-like-hell, unsympathetic-wife thing.

That thew a little cold water on my sadistic-mirth thing.

rainy morning

It's been raining here all night and into this morning, a hard steady rain.  Literally overnight, everything has gone from parched, brown, withered and distressed to lush, green and bright. I can feel a little piece of my being relax and take a very deep breath for the first time in months.  It has been an alarmingly dry summer here, just as it has across a huge portion of the country.

There is something about my soul that is tied to where i grew up - rolling hills, lush valleys, ancient moss covered rock, and rain, water, a moistness even through the hottest part of summer.  I experience an underlying uneasiness whenever i'm in an arid climate, and especially if the arid climate moves into my space.

This morning feels like a return to "as it should be," on a very subtle but very deep level, after a long time of "not quite right."

I had a discussion with someone online a short time after starting on this D/s road.  At the time I was wondering what had kept us from always being aligned this way.  There were so many things i can and others did, point to that were his dominance and my submission, that had been all along.  We just didn't recognize or even look for any kind of pattern; we were just whatever we were.  

This person and i were discussing specifically my husband feeling right about intervening//intruding in my life - in how i am, how i might improve, where i should work on things.  But also learning, discovering, and accomplishing a woman's (my) hidden desires.   And also - how a (woman) is open to or disallows such a thing.

Probably, i'm pretty certain, that had you asked me 5 yrs ago, 10 years ago, if we were open to each other, if we turned to each other for help, direction, if we truly devoted ourselves to each other - we both would have insisted we were and did.  But if you had asked me about specifics, or shown me how it feels to recognize my instincts in a situation, but then consciously choose his way, or made me see what it really means to factor his happiness first, or at least try to even if it takes a lot of effort...  I'm sure i would have said no thanks, not interested, that can't possibly be the right way for me.

And, And... there's no way i could have believed i had hidden desires: spanked, caned, pushed around, tied down, taunted, hurt, forced to my knees in the shower and peed on, in a word - dominated... that's the direction you think my desires lie?  No f&#*ing way.  Never.  No how.

And yet....

It is a piece of my being.  It is sometimes hard, often inconvenient.  At times i would, if allowed, choose to opt out for a bit and come back to it later (like a raincheck).  But it does seem to be the "as it should be."  

back on my heels

This is the right phrase - but it has nothing to do with shoes. (Things rarely do for me - i missed many of the essential girl genes.)

I mean that, at a time when i should feel on my toes, i feel caught out flat footed or back on my heels.

Part of  this is my professional life.  I had a fleeting moment where i felt like i might be juggling everything pretty well, only to look again and realize that what I was achieving wasn't really very impressive and - well - that's work and not the part of my life i bring here really.


I sometimes feel it isn't my place or is somehow wrong to try to figure out my husband.  There is the sense that watching him or trying to understand what he does or how he acts or what he means by what he says is the same as questioning him, that it is too unsubmissive.

Realistically - of course i watch him.  I listen.  I gauge his moods and try to accommodate, follow suit, maybe even anticipate.

And really - he's about as wildly fluctuating as a mountain range.  There is depth and breadth,  new scenery unfolds.  But he doesn't change suddenly. I have a fair idea of how he will view my behaviors and of his likely responses, as well as a fair idea of what he will like and find pleasing.  I typically know what to expect.

So - with all that rock solid, unmovableness - even small changes are huge and really shocking to the system.  And that's what has me back on my heels.

He's been different recently.

I had gotten quite used to having a decent amount of control.  We've been, for a good while now, riding along smoothly with a really nice connection and a warm glow between us (yes - insert a big *aaawww* here.)  It had been very nice - and very easy for me.

And now - it's not hard, but day to day is somehow different.  He has, in a lot of small ways, upped the game, tightened expectations, pushed here and there.  There are some hard edges where there had been all warm fuzzies. I know - poor me.  

There is a sharper edge to his ownership of my body too.  There is a level of need and intensity, an un-masked glee in my pain, the pain pushes to places i am not so easily sure i can go, he is a more distant persona with me in this than previously.

And none of this is poor me - but it is change.  And it's hard to catch up from back on my heels.